


Yes, the River Knows: How Rory Williams got to know his daughter

by Kalypso



Series: The Rory Williams trilogy [3]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-07
Updated: 2012-04-07
Packaged: 2018-01-01 04:51:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1040536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalypso/pseuds/Kalypso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rory finds it difficult to say when they first met.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yes, the River Knows: How Rory Williams got to know his daughter

Looking back, Rory found it difficult to say when he first met his daughter.

Originally, when he tried to work it out, he supposed it must have been the time he was a Roman centurion serving in Britain in 102 AD (or DCCCLV AUC, as he remembered it). He'd heard that a foreign woman had ridden into the camp, and hoped it was the red-haired girl he'd missed earlier, because that might just be Amy come back for him. But he was disappointed when he got to the prefect's tent; he could hear the woman's voice from outside, and it wasn't Amy at all. Listening, though, he began to realise that she was a time traveller, and the man who she said needed help could very easily be the Doctor, so he stepped straight in to volunteer. And there she was: River Song, not quite as tall as Amy, her hair lighter and frizzier, but just as strong and determined, and just as inclined to take his support for granted once she'd glanced across and seen who was there.

But of course, that time didn't really count, because it hadn't been Rory in the Roman camp but a Nestene duplicate with his memories, and after they'd rebooted the universe he wasn't too sure any of that had ever happened, though somehow he remembered it all. And he'd had no idea of who she was.

The first time he'd met her knowing she was his daughter was when he'd rescued her from Madame Kovarian on the base at Demon's Run. Even though he wanted to get her back to Amy as quickly as possible, he had to lift his baby girl out of her carrier, checking her to make sure that she was all right - she was perfect - and giving her a first kiss to make up for all the ones she should have had since she was born.

But then it turned out she wasn't their Melody at all, only a Ganger replica created by Kovarian to fool them. Rory never met his daughter as a baby; when he saw her an hour later she was already years older than he was.

Eventually, he found that he had known her as a child, after all, because she turned out to be the same person as Mels, his best friend at school after Amy. He'd been a bit scared of her then, because she used to look at him sometimes with a smile that said she knew something he didn't, but Amy did that too so he'd just assumed all girls shared some secret that boys never worked out. He'd always tried to protect her, though - did that mean he'd sensed something special between them? Or was he just grateful because, though she didn't seem to take him any more seriously than the others did, she'd let him share in her friendship with Amy?

He wasn't sure that timeline was real, either; he remembered it quite clearly, but he knew now that wasn't any guarantee. And even if it was real, there was something painful about it when he looked back. The longest time Rory had ever spent with his daughter, and he didn't know, and he couldn't protect her from the worst thing of all, whatever it was the Silence had done to his child to turn her into a killer.

Somehow it seemed to have worked out, and she'd fought her way through to the person she ought to be. And though she had Amy's courage and willpower and mad sense of adventure, she was his too: in another timeline that had never really existed, he'd heard her say that she'd rather save the Doctor than the whole universe, and hadn't he once said the same of Amy?

He was so proud of her, even if he was still a little scared sometimes, and he grieved for the years he'd missed, and the confidences they hadn't shared as father and daughter. He thought the only time she'd really confided in him was under the warehouse in Florida, and then he wasn't listening properly to what she was saying, too busy worrying about Amy and the Doctor.

He wished he'd listened. She eluded him; River was a good name for her, even it wasn't the one Amy had chosen, because whenever he tried to grasp her she flowed through his fingers like water. (Like Flesh, too; even though the baby Melody had been a Ganger, he never forgot the horror of that moment when he saw that she'd melted from Amy's arms like spilt milk.) But whoever said you couldn't step in the same river twice - a Greek, he thought, though Rory had heard it from Marcus Aurelius - hadn't been a time traveller. He was constantly stepping into this River, and constantly guessing whether he was upstream or downstream from last time.

Occupational hazard of time travel. But there was another side to it that had begun to dawn on him; criss-crossing time, he'd lived in eras hundreds of years before he would be born, and thousands of years after he'd die. That wasn't so worrying in the abstract, but it was when you saw it in someone else's face. River was far better at concealing her thoughts than Mels, but once or twice he'd caught a look in her eyes again, the one that said she knew something he didn't, and this secret didn't make her smile. It had taken a while for him to realise what it was, but then it hit him: she knew when and how he'd die. She'd never say a word, of course - he remembered her insisting that the Doctor mustn't know what happened at Lake Silencio, even though that turned out to be a double-bluff. But this death, his death, and her sadness were real, he was sure of that.

He ought to be relieved; it was natural for a father to die first, and given the craziness of their tangled timelines he was glad to think she'd survive him. But there was a difference between knowing he would die (after all, he'd had practice) and being around to witness someone mourning him. The only thing more disconcerting was the fact that he'd once caught the Doctor with exactly the same expression. Because the Doctor wasn't looking at him; he was looking with the sad secret in his eyes at River Song. Which meant that, for him, it had already happened - probably long before Amy and Rory had boarded his TARDIS and conceived her. However much he wanted it, nothing could change that future; so that was one secret Rory kept to himself.

But it was why he went on travelling. He worried about what this life was making him; when River had finally arrived on Demons Run and said that "Doctor" was coming to mean "mighty warrior", Rory winced, recognising his own journey from nurse to centurion. And there'd been that horrible day on Appalapachia, when the Doctor persuaded him to leave the older Amy behind. But he needed to look out for his daughter. Waiting for her to drop in for a glass of wine wouldn't do; the _danger_ would find her somewhere, somewhen else. So he went back to the TARDIS, to follow this River as far as he could, till the end.

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this story is taken from [Yes, the River Knows](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i27t5txCrwg) by The Doors.


End file.
